Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide

by Tremper Longman III, Eugene H. Merrill, C.S. Cowles, et al.

Book Overview

Did God condone genocide in the Old Testament? How do Christians harmonize the warrior God of Israel with the God of love incarnate in Jesus?

Christians are often shocked to read that Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, commanded the total destruction--all men, women, and children--of the ethnic group known as the Canaanites.

This seems to contradict Jesus' command in the New Testament to love your enemies and do good...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0310245680
• ISBN13: 9780310245681
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

God's justice and mercy reconciled . . .

This book is an excellent exploration of the unity between the Old & New Testaments of the Bible. Although the massacre of a people is difficult to accept, 3 of the 4 writers clearly explain that those acts must be viewed in context of: 1) a unique period and challenge for God's people; and 2) God's standard of justice is the same in both testatments of the Bible. You will find 4 arguments on how to understand God's call to commit the act of "herem" and how that relates to Jesus. Only one writer, C.S. Cowles, takes the Marcion view that Jesus is in no way related to the God or the events of the Old Testament. Overall, an excellent treatment of a difficult subject matter.

Provocative Topic, Mixed Results

Four Old Testament scholars debate the ethical issue as to how a God of love could order the genocide of the Canaanite communities. CS Cowles handles this by stating that the Israelites misunderstood what God was saying, and that Canaanite genocide is incompatible with God's love shown in Jesus Christ. His essay was the weakest in my view because he in essence rejected the authority of the Old Testament. The other three writers called him to task on this, and also called on Cowles to strengthen his commitment to the infallibility of Scripture. Yikes! The best article in my humble opinion was the one by Eugene Merrill of Dallas Theological Seminary, He goes through every salient Hebrew Bible text about holy war (herem) and concludes that God's call for the destruction of these communites was a unique time in history when God was executing judgment on historically oppressive, repressive societies in opposition to the Noachide commandments. He gives the following reasons: 1) the stubbornness of the Canaanites in their persistence in idolatry, child sacrifice, and their opposition to the revealed will of God, 2) because this was a special time in history when the people of Israel were emerging as God's chosen instrument to bring salvation and judgment to the nations (3 to bring Israel into the promised land and to prepare them for the coming of their Messiah (4 to show them that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and 5) to remove communities that would continue to oppress God's people and to tempt them toward idolatry and sin. Never mind that Israel didn't obey God completely, the article deals with the theological reasons for OT holy war. This satisfies the biblical reasoning more than it solves the ethical dilemna, but nevertheless, I found it to be the most compelling discussion in the book, and John Gard and Tremper Longman (two of the other contributors found themselves in substantial agreement with a number of Merrill's arguments). John Gard (the Missouri Synod Lutheran contributor) ties this topic in with God's eschatological judgment on His enemies. And Tremper Longman says that the NT carries on the Old Testament idea of holy war in the spiritual realm (pointing out Jesus' encounter with the demon world at His first coming). This was a good book. It satisfied me. I have never really had a problem with the idea of God judging whole civilizations. He is the Lord, He can do what is right in His own eyes. I am just glad that He has given me life and allows me to live in His world. I should also say that I commend all four writers for noting that this was an unusual time in history and that there is no authorization or word from God to continue this sort of action today. In the book of Revelation, God pours out His wrath on the beast and his minions, but that will be at His initiative. This is a tough subject where it will be hard to find a unanimous consent. But I commend the writers for their courage in taking up such a

Intriguing topic tempered by author preconceptions

This book deals with one of the more difficult questions arising out of the OT narratives: How could a God of love, as he is described in the NT, order the wholesale slaughter of the Canaanites in the OT? The answers and analyses in this book are certainly thought-provoking. I wasn't sure I appreciated the book's frequent use of the term "genocide" to describe the Israelite's warfare, as this word tends to produce a very emotional reaction in people and is often assumed to describe an inherently evil act which has no regard for the value of human life. (And all the contributors deny that God ever does evil or that he lacks respect for human life.) The word "genocide" seems more like an attempt to appeal to sensationalism and capitalize on the events of Sept.11, than a completely accurate term for what happened to the Canaanites. Also, each of the authors' chapters is heavily based on unproven presuppositions which he simply assumes to be true. Specifically: --C.S. Cowles assumes that parts of the OT (namely, those ordering the warfare) either are not inspired by God, or that they completely misconstrue God's true intent (Cowles doesn't specify which of these options he prefers), to the extent that they are of little if any value to modern readers. --Eugene Merrill assumes that a dispensational interpretation of the Bible is accurate. (While I understand that many people today are dispensationalits, Merrill simply assumes this scheme without proving it). --Daniel Gard assumes that an eschatological theme exists in 1-2 Chronicles (spending more time commenting on implications of this theme, and tracing it through the rest of the Bible, than establishing whether it even exists in the first place). --Tremper Longman assumes that some of God's ways are inherently mysterious and impossible for finite humans to understand completely. (This allows him a very convenient excuse to what otherwise would be a major hole in his argumentation -- namely, why God orders the destruction of the Canaanites but protects the Israelites, when both groups were guilty of sin.) Personally I was most convinced by Longman -- partly because I reject the presuppositions of Cowles and Merrill and agree with Longman's, and partly because of Longman's appeal to "intrusion ethics" (p.185 if you buy the book) as a way of linking God's OT savagery against the Canaanites w/ his future Final Judgment over all mankind. I find this a fascinating concept in explaining God's warfare-commands to Israel. Other readers are certainly free to side with other contributors of the book, but anyone who reads this will get 4 intelligent, well-argued, yet markedly different approaches toward making sense of a problem for which no easy answers exist.

Challenging, essential reading

Every Christian needs to read this book which confronts us with the inescapable gory nature of our history. We believe in a God who is loving and merciful, but who is also holy and cannot abide evil. We rightly focus on the New Testament and its message of love and forgiveness for sins: this book reminds us that our salvation has a bloody history, not only in the torture and crucifixion of Christ, but also in the death of many hundreds of thousands of people, by leaders who believed they were ordered to do this by God himself. Three of the book's contributors understand that Moses, Joshua and David were led by God to wipe out Canaanites, Amalekites, Philistines and others, but Nazarene pacifist C S Cowles believes that the New Testament shows that they were misled. It is worth reading the articles from the different points of view, but also intriguing to read each author's critique of the others' views. I felt that each article was worth having been included in the book, but I would have liked to read what an evangelical pacifist with a high view of the bible would have written, too. Highly recommended

With a very close eye on events of Biblical history

Compiled by series editor Stanley N. Gundry, Show Them No Mercy brings together four disparate views by C. S. Cowles (Professor of Bible and theology, Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, California), Eugene H. Merrill (Distinguished Professor of Old Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary), Daniel L. Gard (Associate Professor of Exegetical Theology, concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana), and Tremper Longman III (Professor of Old Testament, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California), on God and the genocide of the Canaanites, with a very close eye on both events of Biblical history and their relevance to modern-day crises such as the September 11th attacks. A diverse, scholarly, thoughtful and thought-provoking addressing of issues that do not, on the surface, seem to reconcile with the teaching of Jesus Christ that commanded love for thy neighbor, Show Them No Mercy is very highly recommended reading, especially for those who are having difficulty reconciling the Yahweh of the Old Testament with the teachings of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.